I have noticed that Rocco’s friends don’t seem particularly happy in his company. Jasper barely speaks, and Dax is sulky and easily irritated. Some of the hangers-on disappeared entirely after what happened to Wade Dyer. Rocco snaps at anyone who remains, until his group of a dozen minions dwindles to three or four.
Still, I follow him as the school year draws to a close, until there’s only a few weeks left. Because I don’t trust that he’ll let us board that ship without one final confrontation.
A week before the final challenge of the Quartum Bellum, I study in the library. Much as I usually enjoy this place, I’m longing to be outdoors where the orange blossoms are in full bloom, the sun shining, the grass fragrant. The weather is fully warm now. Nobody wears sweaters or jackets anymore, or even stockings. The girls lay out on the lawn with their skirts pulled up to get some color on their legs. The boys hang around tossing footballs and baseballs, pretending not to watch.
I’d like to be down there, but I’m close to achieving actual decent grades, as long as I can stick the landing on my final exams. So I’m one of the only people inside the tower, resisting the siren call of early summer.
Or at least, that’s the case until I hear several sets of footsteps coming up the ramp.
Instinctively, I slip out of my seat and hide between the bookshelves.
The footsteps are heavy and male. The lowered voices have an edge of malice all too familiar to me.
“Did you see her laying out on the grass with her head in his lap? Fucking flaunting herself.”
Rocco’s hissing fury makes my flesh go cold and clammy. I stay exactly where I am, wedged in the tiny space only feet away from the boys.
“Well, he paid enough for her. Let him have her. I would have kept the cash, personally.”
I hear Dax Volker’s ugly laugh.
I expect them to keep walking up the ramp, but they appear to have stopped. There’s a scuffing of chairs and a thud of books being thrown down as they toss their belongings onto a table close to the one I was using.
“She thinks she won. She thinks she can prance around with him, laughing in my face.”
“She did win. It’s done. Give it up.”
I’m not as familiar with that voice since I’ve barely heard him speak, but I’m quite sure the low, disdainful comment came from Jasper Webb. I’m certain of it when it’s immediately accompanied by the sharp pops of Jasper cracking his knuckles in rapid sequence.
“That’s what you’d do, isn’t it?” Rocco hisses. “You’d give up. Like when Dean Yenin beat your fucking ass to the canvas.”
“He didn’t have to fight that mobile mountain first,” Jasper bites back. “What the fuck do you know about it, anyway—you weren’t down in that ring. You don’t even box.”
“I’ll put my knife up against your bony fists any time,” Rocco snarls.
“Knock it off,” Dax says, simultaneously bored and irritated. “I’m sick of you two sniping at each other. I’m sick of this school and this whole fucking year. Can’t wait to spend my summer in Ibiza, fucking coked-out bikini bitches.”
Rocco is silent for a minute, but his mind obviously keeps returning to Zoe, like a hamster in a wheel.
“It isn’t over,” he says.
I hear the exasperated sighs of the other two, clearly at their breaking point with this topic.
“Yeah, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?” Dax says, openly hostile now.
“Whatever it is, you can leave me out of it,” Jasper adds. “I don’t fancy another run-in with the Chancellor. Unlike you two, I don’t have some sweet mommy who wants to get her throat cut on my behalf.”
“I doubt mine would offer,” Rocco says, quietly.
It’s the first time I’ve heard him admit something that could be construed as vulnerable. But he doesn’t say it with any sadness. He’s only stating a fact. He’s calculated to what uses he could put his mother, and self-sacrifice simply isn’t on that list. He doesn’t care whether she loves him or not.
“What, then?” Dax says, with an air of wanting to get this over with. “What’s your plan?”
“My plan is to wait,” Rocco says, in his gentlest voice. “I’ll wait two years, three years, four . . . I’ll wait until after we graduate, and after they’re married. Maybe I’ll wait until she’s pregnant.” He laughs softly, enjoying that idea. “Eight months pregnant, about to welcome their first child. Then I’ll find her. I’ll knock on her door. And the moment she opens it, unsuspecting, unaware, I’ll take another beaker of that acid and I’ll throw it right in her face. Burn her, blind her, fuck her up. Let’s see how much he wants her then, when she’s a fucking monster.”
Dax and Jasper are silent, not even able to muster a chuckle as the depravity of this plan lays over their table like an icy mist.
“You think you’ll still care in four years?” Jasper says, trying to hide his disgust.
“I’d wait fifty years to do it,” Rocco replies. “But I won’t have to. Happiness is an anesthetic. They’ll get comfortable much sooner than that. They’ll believe I’ve given up because that’s what they want to believe. I’ll never forget. I’ll never forgive. Not until I get what I want.”
My stomach heaves, abruptly and without warning. I have to clap my hand over my mouth, like I did in the Grand Hall the day Ozzy’s mother was killed.
However much I’ve changed this year, that vomit reflex is the one thing I can’t control.
Perhaps Rocco hears the slap of my hand. He seems to tense up, demanding sharply, “Whose bag is that?”
I can just see my backpack hanging over the corner of my abandoned chair. I forgot to grab it when I hid between the bookshelves.
My instinct is to flee, but Rocco can’t see me. He can’t know that I heard.
“I dunno,” Dax says. “It’s been there the whole time. Probably someone forgot it.”
“Pick it up,” Rocco barks. “Look through it. See who it belongs to.”
Dax’s chair scrapes across the carpet as he stands, planning to do as Rocco ordered.
Now I’m in a panic, knowing that my name is written inside several of my textbooks. If Dax looks through them, he’ll tell Rocco, and Rocco will fucking know I’m somewhere close by. He’ll know it isn’t a coincidence.
I’m about to burst out of my hiding place like a grouse flushed from ground, when I hear a light voice saying, “Did someone forget that? I’ll take it.”
Ms. Robin’s oversized cardigan and mane of frizzy red hair sweeps into view as she snatches up the bag, right before Dax’s big hand can close around it.
“Thank you, boys,” she says, already striding away.
“Did she hear any of that?” Rocco says in a low tone, after she’s gone.
“No,” Dax says. “And who cares—she’s a fuckin’ space cadet. You ever seen her drooling all over those crumbly rat-shit scrolls? Thinks she’s a fuckin’ medieval monk, or a nun or some shit.” He gives another of those awful laughs. “Dresses like a nun, too. I’d still bend her over the desk. I like a redhead. So does our boy Jasper, don’t ya Jasper?”